


Nothingness

by chemicalflashes



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: F/M, Post-The End of Evangelion, Post-Third Impact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 19:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19836982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemicalflashes/pseuds/chemicalflashes
Summary: There is nothing here.I stand on the edge of the red sea and it tumbles forwards and recedes. Boring.I think I am disturbed to look upon a red sea and call it boring.





	Nothingness

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I wrote this when I was literally 14. I found it stewing in my old mail and decided to edit it. The punctuation was so off!
> 
> Other than that, this is mostly untouched.
> 
> Now, read an edgy 14 year old's fanfic.

**1**

There is nothing here.

I stand on the edge of the red sea and it tumbles forwards and recedes. Boring.

I think I am disturbed to look upon a red sea and call it boring.

Red. Why does it have to be red?

Red was her colour.

**2**

I don't know if I will ever see anyone again. I have done deplorable things and it's good I'm going to stay alone. I'll get used to this kind of loneliness.

I have always been alone, haven't I?

The seagulls are back from the red sea. They are so noisy. I guess I really am not lonely. The wind rushes on my face.

I am tired.

The seagulls are so loud. I think they're getting on my nerves.

Like her.

**3**

I think I wanted to help her. I think.

I don't know what she wanted, though; she was always so unpredictable. Everything about her was unpredictable.

She was a mystery.

Not like Ayanami...Ayanami was something else. No, she was a mystery because I never knew what she was going to speak and what words would tumble out next to hurt me.

She was hurting too. There's nobody here to talk.

I wish to talk to her again.

**4**

When I wake up, the sterile light of the hospital is no longer surrounding me.

I take in a deep breath. That was a nightmare. I hate it. There it is, in my mind, taunting me. "Pervert," a voice echoes.

I am not!

"But you're lying."

The sea is red. The sky is red. Even the moon is red. She's berating me.

I deserve this. Apologies won't get me out of this.

I am sorry.

**5**

"You can do this, Ikari," I tell myself. My hands are shaking.

I open the door to the apartment. I see nothing.

My home is in darkness. It swallows me. I walk inside with small and slow steps, afraid of stepping onto something. 

The first room I enter, is hers. It's entirely by mistake. 

In the low light, I can see it is wrecked, but I know the impact didn't do this. Pages lie scattered on the floor and I pick up one. It's full of scribbles.

'I hate myself.'

Me too.

I miss her.

**6**

If I squint my eyes, I can see her. Almost. Everything's so blurry.

White noise in my head. The clouds are cotton candy. I don't understand.

I never did, and now when I try to, they are all gone. It's crushing me. I will die alone.

If I squint my eyes, I can see her. There she is.

On the shore.

**7**

I don't understand and I never did and I am so angry. She lies there like a doll while I climb up on her and choke her.

I don't understand. No one understands.

Suddenly, a caress. Her hand on my cheek. Her life in my hands. She's looking at me with empty eyes. I'm probably the same.

Two words.

"How disgusting."

Two words and she kills me. It's ironic.

I finally allow myself to say her name.

Asuka. Asuka. Asuka.

**8 (6')**

Where am I?

I see so much red.

I am not sure I like red anymore. I can hear seagulls squawking.

They are stupid, like him, the one who called me back.

This is tiring.

**9 (7')**

I realise he has dragged me completely out of the water and the sand prickles. It is him only, with wide blue eyes and bony fingers on my neck. He saves me and then decides to kill me?

How disgusting.

His eyes are wide and empty. Do I look the same? I cannot breathe...

Hey, you...you can rest now. I don't understand but I'll try, okay? Don't kill me.

I touch his cheek and he stops. His cries are pathetic.

I know what he did. I can only feel disgust.

So I say it.

**10**

I watch her as she sits up and watches the view around her. She blends into the background with her red plugsuit and ginger hair.

The smell of blood never goes away. I stopped crying just a while ago but I don't think I can stop being sad.

Here we are at the end of the world and there is humanity, away from our reach in the embrace of the red sea. 

She glares at me suddenly. Maybe she will kill me.

I don't care anymore.

**11**

I was wrong; she doesn't move or say anything. We sit on the beach for the entire day in silence and the stench of the sea strokes our cold faces.

At last, when the sky is getting dark, I stand up and start walking back towards the apartment. It's amazing how I don't feel much hunger anymore. I am just going to sleep.

I can hear the dull thud of slow footsteps behind me.

**12**

"Ikari," I call out. "Where are you going?"

I don't know why I'm talking now. For all I care, he can go jump off a cliff. We haven't talked for the entire day and have just sat on the shore, stewing in the repugnant air of our actions.

It shouldn't bother me when he finally gets up, but it does and so I question him.

He stands a few metres away from me and watches the sand. Figures he doesn't have the guts to look me in the eyes.

"The…." he stutters a bit, voice rough from not being used for so long, "a-apartment. It's still okay."

**13**

Unbelievably, she follows me.

Okay, then.

**14**

I have been here for eight weeks, I guess. Eight weeks with no one in sight except the freaking seagulls. And then she showed up.

I don't think she knows how long I have been here. And I don't think she wants to know.

In the faint candlelight, shadows play across her face and I watch them. She doesn't say anything as she goes to her bedroom and changes into her normal house clothes and keeps the plugsuit aside.

If she notices the lack of garbage in there, she doesn't say anything.

**15**

I sleep in my cupboard room. In the darkness, I can still see Ayanami hovering over me.

I am accustomed to this strangeness now. She doesn't say anything but she knows how I've broken things and burnt stores.

She's always there, not smiling and motionless.

A ghost in my mind. A ghost in my eyes.

I wish she would go away.

**16**

Morning. The start of something new. Something unknown.

I have always hated mornings.

There's no smell of breakfast floating in the air like before. I creep out of my room and look around. I cannot see him anywhere.

He's not in the kitchen. His bedroom door is open so I decide to peek in. Maybe he has run away. He always does.

I look in. It's not concern.

(It's not. NOT.)

Predictably, he's lying immobile on the bed; I can even see the slow and rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

His room is a mess. I don't know how but my feet move on their own. I see dried tears on his cheeks and a bottle of pills lying on the floor. He is rolled onto his side and his left arm hangs limply from the bed, almost touching the bottle.

Oh.

**17**

She's wearing her green dress, the one with the yellow bow. I guess she just wants to feel good. Who knows.

Her bandages from yesterday are still there.

She doesn't say anything to me, just glances and walks away. I think that's for the better.

**18**

We meet each other in the wrecked city and it's entirely by chance. She's watching a burnt store. A store that I burnt.

I wonder if she suspects that. Maybe my current appearance will give it away. The smoke is rising up to meet the sulphur clouds.

She frowns at the store. I walk past her.

**19 (18')**

Grey plumes rise from a street nearby. Short-circuiting? But that's not possible...the supply is gone.

What exactly is going on here? My mind tells me it's dangerous but I ignore it and walk on. I don't care for danger.

At first I don't see anything but then…

He stumbles out of the smoke, from somewhere beside the building. He looks lost and almost as if he was burning himself.

I have only called him 'him' or his surname till now but...but…

Shinji what the fuck are you doing?

**20**

Kaworu. Ayanami. Misato. Kaji. Ritsuko. Father.

Mother. Eva Unit 01.

Asuka. Cannibalised. Dead. Naked.

Stop haunting me!

**21**

Someone's screaming in the middle of the night.

Ikari.

(Shinji…)

Stop it, you absolute moron.

He doesn't stop. I glare at the ceiling and jump off the bed. Why do I still have these bandages on? It's obvious my body is fine. Whatever.

I slide open his door and see him thrashing on the bed.

I hate him. How dare he act like this! It has to be an act.

But…

He hasn't stopped even after my entry. I take in the walls of his room for the first time. They aren't bare. The one opposite to the door is filled with tally marks engraved on it. The one left to it is full of words...they seem to be names. Some are even in Roman letters. The right one is the same.

…How long has he been back?

I don't want to care…I know I thought I'll try to understand but it's so hard. I hate him.

Shinji is still thrashing and screaming incoherently.

I return to my room and bury myself in the covers.

**22**

My throat feels soft and fragile when I wake up. I don't know why. I did take some of Misato's sleeping pills but I still had a nightmare. I have some vague recollection of it.

Nothing ever changes. I will always be like this.

Maybe one day I'll fly away with the smoke I create.

I leave the apartment.

**23**

There's smoke. Again.

**24**

She's talking. Actually.

"Did you burn it?"

I choose to look at the asphalt below our feet. Why is she talking now?

"The store. Did you burn it?"

"That was me, wasn't it?" 

I look up. My vision is blurry. I touch my cheeks. Why...why am I crying?

She takes a step back and I notice it.

"Is this how it feels to lose your mind?"

**25**

I don't know how it feels like to lose one's mind. Or maybe I do and just don't want to remember it. What I do know is that he has lost his.

He is crying and looking at the tears he has swiped with his palm with an utmost profound expression.

I don't know this person.

"Asuka?" he says.

I tremble slightly.

"I am a terrible person."

**26**

When I pack some of my stuff and say I'm going to look for a new place, he doesn't say anything. He doesn't care and I'm glad for that.

Or maybe I'm just angry.

He never held me. Why was I expecting anything else? He did say he was a terrible person.

When I leave, he slides the door close behind me as if I was never there in the first place.

Fuck this.

**27**

I don't see her again. It seems like she has migrated to the other side of the city. Maybe she has even left it.

I don't know.

I wanted to stop her but nobody except death has ever been able to stop her so who am I.

We didn't fight before parting...it just sort of happened. 

One day I decide to go to the beach. I had stopped going there when she had been with me but today I just walk there on my own. I haven't eaten in days.

Everything is sick and white and I just want to purge it. I walk into the sea. Maybe they'll take me back in.

Please take me back in.

There is nothing for me here. I am nothing and I want nothing more than to dissolve into nothingness again.

Fucking lot of nothing. I giggle at my own pathetic 'joke'.

The last thing I remember is the taste of blood and salt rolling on my tongue.

**28**

Fuck this.

He's an idiot.

**29**

She is glaring at me when I open my eyes.

Oh.

The sand cuts into my back. Why am I still here?

I see bright blue eyes and feel warmth on my forehead.

Oh.

"You idiot."

Really I am.

**30 (29')**

There are clouds in the sky. It'll rain soon.

He lies still in front of me and my clothes are wet from dragging him out of the sea. I sit beside him. This is such an exact opposite of what happened a few weeks ago.

He looks pale and ill. His collar bones are jutting out. This is sickening.

Why does this hellish world get so much joy out of making me disgusted?

Only he could have created this world. I touch his forehead and it's cold. His eyes are open.

He is such a massive idiot.

**31**

I take him to the house I found to stay. It's not that far away from the seashore. He plods behind me as I hold his arm and pull him. Our clothes are still wet.

I open the door and lead him to the sofa. He just stands there and I push him so he falls down on it. His head is bent down. What the hell is wrong with him?

"Ikari?"

There's no response. I prompt again and shake his shoulder. 

"Third?"

I push him so hard he falls against the sofa and he still doesn't say anything. React to me, damn it!

There's a very slight grin on his face...but he looks on the verge of tears. The wet shirt clings to him. I suddenly realise he needs to change out of these clothes.

I leave him like that while I go rummage in the wardrobe for a towel and some clothes. I know a boy has lived here. It had been a family of four. A boy, a girl, a woman and a cat. It hits hard.

No time to think of that now.

I find some clothes for him and rush out to see him fully slouched against the cushions. He is shivering violently.

Don't go out on me now.

**32**

I don't know what's happening. I feel warm hands on my body. My shirt slips off my arms. The belt goes next.

This is a strange dream. Red hair dances in my vision. Pale hands run on my body and rub my limbs. It's warm now.

Red hair dances in my vision.

Pale hands run on my body.

Red hair dances in my vision

Pale hands run on my body.

Red hair…

Red...

Why is it always red?

**33**

He lies wrapped in a quilt. I dressed him in a yellow t-shirt and loose blue jeans. He is dreaming away.

I look at the bundle of his wet clothes. I even found him new underwear.

This is certainly embarrassing.

**34**

Where am I?

I don't recall anything at all. I just remember the red sea and…

Oh.

Right.

Why did she do that?

I try to get up but fail. My arms and feet feel like lead.

Anyway, I somehow get one foot off the sofa and soon the other joins it. I just manage to sit upright when I see her enter the room. I can hear the seagulls' noise.

"Good morning, Third."

Yes. Interaction.

"Hello…"

This is so hard. I hate it.

**35 (34')**

When I reach the living room in the morning, he's trying to sit up. I suddenly realise that the clothes I gave him are too loose.

He's probably underweight.

I don't know what to say so I just wish him a good morning. 

That was so lame. Hell, I suck at talking.

**36**

She gives me a cup of instant ramen she cooked on a stove she assembled outside the house. She has always been smart like that. I haven't had something warm in so long.

I eat all of it. I look at her eating out of her own cup in silence. We sit on the road and just have food. A cool wind blows and I guess it will rain again.

I continue looking at her. I keep doing it.

Why is she doing this for me?

I don't know anything about her.

**37**

I finally open the bandages on my eye and arm in the afternoon, one day after I found him. They are wet and I guess I have grown tired of avoiding what I would find underneath them.

I open them with shaking hands. He is watching me.

Miraculously, there is almost absolutely nothing. Everything is fine except for pink discolouration.

If he is surprised, he doesn't say anything.

**38**

I am glad she is alright.

**39**

After two days of staying at the house ('her house'), I thank her and say I am going back to the apartment.

Her eyebrows crease. "You didn't understand anything."

"It's not about that," I reply quietly. "I am just a burden to you."

The crease tightens. She sighs.

"Yes, that's right. But four hands work better than two. We could get your stuff from there. You're welcome to stay here."

A pause. A very long pause.

"If you want."

She's looking at me. I cannot say no.

I don't want to say no.

**40**

We settle into a semi-comfortable routine of trying to exist.

Sometimes we fish. The stench is less now. Ayanami's head is still rotting on the horizon but it doesn't bother me that much now.

Sometimes we raid bookstores. 

Sometimes we drink wine. Just a little. We always end up spitting it. It has such a vile taste.

"Why did you do it?" she asks me suddenly, one day when I'm just lying on the sofa.

"What?"

"Jerk off to the sight of my body."

I want to shrink and the earth to swallow me whole.

"I am sorry."

"That doesn't make it okay."

I bury my head in my knees.

**41**

I finally ask about it. I just want to see him quiver and make him guilty. A voice tells me he's already guilty but I ignore it.

He's shaking now. I don't care. I want to hear.

"Why?"

His words are muffled from between his legs but I listen anyway.

"I missed you. I couldn't see you like that."

"That's nonsense!"

"You were someone I didn't remember you ever being. You were like a puppet. It made sense. I really am so fucked up. This is the reason I was going back. I don't deserve to be around you."

"That's just running away all over again."

He suddenly jerks up his neck. His eyes are wide and red.

"Then what should I do, Asuka? Just tell me. I am sorry. I am sorry for everything. No matter what I do, it just never comes out right. But what should I do?"

"Maybe you could start by taking responsibility of your actions."

He almost stands up. I see the fury in his eyes. It's the first time I have seen him like this after the Impact.

"I AM!" 

What?

"They..they won't leave me. I'm losing it. I want to understand you but I just cannot. I have tried so hard. I am trying so hard to remember who said what and why they said it. But I cannot."

He catches hold of his head between his hands.

"I just keep letting everyone down."

"Well, isn't that true?"

He cries.

**42**

We don't talk for the whole day after that.

I just feel empty. I tried to understand. He says he did too.

It was all useless. We are useless. This existence is meaningless in a world where society doesn't exist.

It is night and he's screaming yet again. I feel sorry...for real. Maybe I should not have been so harsh about it earlier. I don't know.

I don't know what he's saying.

I will be lying if I say I am not concerned.

**43**

There's someone beside me a hairbreadth away. Soft and warm. The rain patters on the window.

She lies her back against my abdomen as we both rest on our side. 

I realise my cheeks are wet.

"Stop screaming," she mumbles. Her hand rests awkwardly on my waist as it turns at an odd angle to reach it.

"I have heard that people don't have nightmares on sleeping with someone."

I don't say anything.

"That's all that there is to it."

For the first time in my life, I don't dream.

**44**

There's surprisingly no odd misadventures in the morning. Everyone has kept their hands to themselves.

I look down at him lying peacefully amidst the covers

I think I would like to do this again.

**45**

I think that was nice. I didn't dream about anything at all.

I wonder if we can sleep together again.

That was such an embarrassing way to frame this.

**46**

Two months have passed since Asuka's return.

I don't think anyone is going to come back. At least not in my lifetime. I stand in front of the grave marker I made and gaze at Misato's pendant nailed to it. I made this thing some days after coming back.

There is wetness on my cheeks.

Oh yeah. This is a thing I just do these days. I fall down to the sand.

Why do I feel so very sick?

**47**

I think he will die. I cannot save him, anyway; I'm not a doctor.

He lies in his bed and I sit beside him. It's probably malnutrition…but what am I supposed to give him in this post apocalypse world?

We found rice a while back and I boil it for him. And then there's the occasional fish, but that can only do so much.

A cobalt stare rimmed with red. His breathing is slow now. I don't know what to do. I don't want to imagine being all alone. I am not him. I cannot be like that for eight weeks, let alone a lifetime.

Why is this happening?

I lie beside him totally silent. I just cannot move.

The night is long and each second is tense.

**48**

I want to go to the beach.

I cannot breathe.

**49**

"...Wake up," I manage to say. She's up in a minute.

"What is it?"

Her voice is the kind of tired that comes with just getting up, soft and lazy.

"Will you come to the beach with me?"

She scoffs. It's such an Asuka thing.

"You say that like you're in any position to take me there."

"Bite me," I mutter. "But will you or won't?"

I don't know why she looks at me for one long minute before she answers, or why she puts her hand on my cheek.

"Okay."

**50**

I haven't seen him excited for anything in so long.

I put an arm under his shoulder and help him walk, just in case.

He stumbles every now and then.

"Heck, what are you so excited for?"

"I feel something good will happen tonight."

"Yeah, it will," he adds softly. He's looking up at the stars. He's frail in my hold but his eyes are shining.

Will he really die?

**51**

I don't want him to die.

**52**

We lie beside each other in the sand and look at the stars. I point out all the constellations we can see. She just smiles.

"You know, the physics degree is mine but you are the one who knows all about the night sky? Unacceptable."

I know she doesn't mean it. I can hear the grin in her voice.

"I just have been interested in astronomy since I was a child. That's all. I don't think I know the real stuff."

"That's alright but doing it since you were a child? I suppose no one ever stopped you?"

I stifle a laugh. "It's not like the cello."

"Mhm," she murmurs, "so it was your own thing?"

"I guess."

The waves break the silence between us.

"I would stay up at night with a cheap telescope I somehow managed to save for. It must be among my belongings back at Misato's house."

I realise she's looking at me. I falter. 

"The stars were nice to see in the countryside…"

"You're sick," she states the obvious.

"I am aware but you haven't said that until now. Am I starting to look sick too?"

"Don't flatter yourself; you always look sick."

The waves dance.

"I also know you think I'm malnourished… I saw you looking it up in one of the books."

She narrows her eyes. "Well, I am not wrong."

I sigh. 

"While that might be true on a basic level...I don't think I can live anymore. I am purposeless."

She sits up.

"That's not true."

**53**

His body jerks for a brief moment before relaxing again. I look at him lying on the sand with his shining blue eyes, messy hair and face softened by the darkness. I look at his skinny arms and legs.

The sand pricks me. He is watching me, waiting for an explanation.

I am not sure I have any. Words refuse to leave my sealed lips.

I speak after what seems an eternity.

"It's not true because we have to live for each other."

**54**

I sit up and do so very slowly.

"Asuka."

She's grasping the sand at random and then putting it back down. Fidgeting.

"Shinji," she replies.

I hold her hand and her eyes widen.

"If that's true I'll try to live."

**55**

We sleep on the beach for the rest of the night, not caring if it rains.

**56**

Footprints in the sand are washed away. If sand can start anew, then even humans can.

I hold his hand.

**57**

I'll live. I made a promise.

**58**

There is nothing here.

I stand on the edge of the red sea and it tumbles forwards and recedes. Boring.

I think I am disturbed to look upon a red sea and call it boring.

He shouts in the distance, calling me to look over some (probably silly) thing he found.

There is nothing here, but everything was born out of nothingness.

We'll make something of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, 58 snippets!
> 
> I don't even know why....
> 
> Okay. I hope that was... acceptable.


End file.
